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Recent upheavals in the Middle East — including the overthrow of the governments in Tunisia and Egypt, riots in Bahrain, and near civil war in Libya — raise the question of what lessons the People’s Republic of China, and especially the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), are likely to have learned.

Over the last half year, China’s military has carefully unveiled its J-20 stealth airplane, threatened US ships and hosed them down, discussed plans for an aircraft carrier and boasted of their being equals with the US on the global stage. In light of all this, we asked the Heritage Foundation’s Dean Cheng to give us some idea of what actually happened during the recent visit of President Hu Jintao and what it means for them and for us. His title says it all: Hu Came and All I Got Was a Joint Statement.

It was the top story in the Wall Street Journal — China looks set to become the world’s second largest economy. But the New York Times put it on the front page of the business section, seeming to indicate this story was less a milestone and more a technical correction. The need for analysis was obvious so we asked a Chinese expert at the Heritage Foundation to give us a better idea of just how important this fact is and why. Dean Cheng’s conclusion: the PLA must still fight for its share of the pot, but a growing pot will probably drive a demand for greater deference from China to those who share its neighborhood.

We face what appears to be one of the most volatile security threats of the last decade as the two Koreas threaten each other, and us, with talk of war growing graver by the day. We asked Dean Cheng, a China expert at the Heritage Foundation, to tell us just how had things really are and what the PRC’s role should be. Cheng’s conclusion: This is a defining moment for Beijing. After North Korea’s blatantly unambiguous, and indefensible act of sinking the South Korean Navy’s ship, the Cheonan, Beijing is either going to side with the angels or the demons. South Korea, the US, and even Japan should mobilize global pressure on China to join in the international response to North Korean aggression.

With President Obama heading to China as part of his sweep through Asia, it’s a good time to assess the recent and groundbreaking visit of Gen. Xu Caihou, the Chinese equivalent of the defense secretary to America. The Chinese put on a full-court propaganda press, filled with images of PLA troops helping the afflicted and laced with declarations of China’s peaceful intentions. We turned to Dean Cheng, one of the top analysts on the Chinese military who recently joined the right-wing Heritage Foundation, for his more independent assessment.